


at certain hours it all breaks down

by ohmcgee



Category: Batman (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics)
Genre: I do what I want, M/M, canon mixed in with non-canon bits, slow build with porn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-15
Updated: 2015-03-15
Packaged: 2018-03-17 22:09:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3545531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmcgee/pseuds/ohmcgee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jason likes to stick with what he knows and what he knows is Tim as Red Robin, controlling and vicious, smart as shit and downright fucking scary when someone he cares about is in trouble. This is something new.</p>
            </blockquote>





	at certain hours it all breaks down

“That was fun,” Tim’s got a manic grin on his face, hands on his hips as he stares out over the city, the sun just starting to bleed into the horizon giving everything an ethereal golden outline.

“You’ve got a messed up version of fun, Red,” Jason snorts, legs dangling off the side of the roof.

“Uh huh,” Tim says, hopping up on the ledge with all the grace of a gold medal gymnast and walks toward him, one foot in front of the other, arms held out by his sides. It makes Jason a little nervous, but he stamps it down. “You do remember who you’re talking to, right? All that hand to hand, close quarters combat is right up your alley. You’ve got blood on your forehead, by the way.”

Jason makes a derisive noise through his nose and pats his jacket down for his pack of smokes. There’s always blood on him somewhere; he’ll wash it off later.

Tim looks down at him, grin nearly splitting his face in two. “See? You enjoyed it so much you need a cigarette.”

Jason rolls his eyes. “I need a cigarette because you’re getting on my last damn nerve,” he growls, but apparently he’s shit out of luck because he can’t find the pack he swore he left in there. “What the hell are you so giddy about anyway? I think I like you better grumpy and barking commands at everyone like you think you’re a big kid.”

Tim shrugs, still grinning like he can’t quite help it. “Just. You know. Wired and stuff. Starving too. Hey, you wanna get breakfast?”

Jason raises his eyebrow. “Twice in one month?”

Tim laughs. “I’m not cooking this time. There’s a diner just down the way that has wicked chilaquiles though.”

Jason peers up at him. “Only if you lose the feathers.”

“Everyone’s a critic,” Tim grumbles, but there’s still a tiny grin playing at the corner of his mouth. “Fine. I’ll swing by my place and change. Meet you there?”

“Sure,” Jason shrugs and watches Tim leap off the building, ridiculous glider fanning out and carrying him across to another rooftop. He unhooks his own grapple gun and fires it off, swinging by his own apartment before meeting up with Tim at the diner. Turns out he could really use that cigarette after all.

 

 

***

 

 

Tim’s quieter once they settle into a booth at the diner, the adrenaline finally wrung out of him, and he’s back to the calm, mellow kid Jason’s used to. That mad, grinning thing full of energy and giggles up on the roof earlier was foreign territory and it made him uneasy. Jason likes to stick with what he knows and what he knows is Tim as Red Robin, controlling and vicious, smart as shit and downright fucking scary when someone he cares about is in trouble. He can work next to Red Robin all night, communicate in half-words, half-body language. He can have his back and trust Tim to have his, but this? Sitting across from each other watching Tim add four packets of cream to his coffee and bounce his knee under the table, this is uncharted territory. Like that time a few weeks ago when he’d gone to Tim for simple information and somehow ended up staying for fucking _waffles_ , talking about Alfred and Bruce’s stupid mug that’s chipped in sixteen different places that Alfred keeps hot gluing back together because it’s his favorite. They’d talked like they were _friends_ and Jason had left with the weirdest feeling that he couldn’t place and now he’s having it again. He doesn't like it.

“It’s a breakfast menu,” Tim says, smirking a little when he notices the way Jason’s been studying it for the last ten minutes. “Not Homer’s Odyssey in the original Greek.”

Jason flips him off. “What’s good?” He asks, folding the menu up.

Tim shrugs. “I’m getting the chilaquiles. They have migas too. Steph likes the crepes.”

Jason wrinkles his nose. “Kory tried to make crepes once. I think they’re still stuck to my ceiling.”

Tim laughs and it’s not the too bright, too loud laughter from earlier that shook things lose in Jason’s chest, so he can deal with it. “Her and Harper are working out okay, then?”

Jason raises an eyebrow at him but Tim mostly ignores it to put more cream in his coffee. “They’re fine,” he says. “Why?”

Tim shrugs. “Just making conversation. They seem cool. Roy’s like, a super genius, right? I wouldn’t mind picking his brain for this thing I”ve been working on.”

Jason’s staring at him like he’s grown another mouth or something when the waitress finally reaches them and asks them what they’ll have. Tim orders the chilaquiles with a side of fresh avocado and Jason orders the migas with extra chile peppers and a side of refried beans.

They eat in mostly silence, Meg the waitress popping in and every now and then to refill Tim’s coffee and Jason’s tea, finally dropping a boatload of creamers on the table the fifth time Tim asks her for some.

“How do you drink that without sugar?” Jason asks.

“I don’t really like sweet things,” Tim tells him, peeling back the top of another creamer packet. “So what are you doing after this?”

“Sleeping for at least four hours in succession.” He glares at Tim. “I'd imagine you'd be doing the same.”

Tim shrugs. “I’m not really tired. Hey, you think Roy’s free? Maybe he could pop by and help me with that thing.”

Jason snorts. “Roy’s on a beach a thousand miles from here elbow deep in --” He coughs. “Anyway. I don’t think he’s available.”

Tim’s mouth twists into a smirk. “I’m not Damian, you know. You don’t have to censor yourself around me.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Jason mutters and scoops the last of the migas on his fork, shoveling it in his mouth.

Meg brings the check by and when Tim offers to pay for both Jason lets him with a snide comment about how he’s the one on Bruce’s payroll, so be his guest, and walks out into the windy March air to have another smoke.

“Bruce hates smoking,” Tim says when he walks out, like it’s fucking news to Jason. “Honestly, I think it’s ridiculous.”

This has Jason tilting his head curiously, exhaling to the side to let the wind catch it.

“All the things that can kill us and he’s worried about --” He plucks the cigarette straight out of Jason’s fingers. Jason’s honestly too stunned to react. “this tiny thing?”

Jason watches, lips parted a little in disbelief, when Tim lifts the cigarette to his mouth and inhales. He coughs a little and Jason means to laugh at him, he does, but it gets stuck somewhere in his chest when Tim recovers and tries again, with the same fixed determination he has with everything. He’s grinning a little when he exhales a cloud of smoke and passes it back to Jason.

“I don’t really see the appeal though,” he says, wrinkling his nose up in a way, that if Jason had lost his damn mind, he might call cute. Jason just stands there holding the cigarette between his fingers, the swift breeze scattering the ashes in the wind.

“Thanks for the breakfast,” Tim says and pulls his hood up around his face, though Jason feels like he should point out _he’s_ the one who paid for it. “See you around.”

“See ya,” Jason mutters and watches him walk off, bringing the cigarette up to his mouth to finish it off, but when he holds it between his lips he thinks it tastes different, tastes like -- and he flicks it to the ground, squashing it beneath the toe of his boot before stalking off in the opposite direction.

 

 

***

 

 

“Did you know your baby bird brother can build robots?”

Jason rubs his temples in clockwise circles, then counterclockwise. “He’s not my fucking brother, Harper,” he says. “And no, I didn’t and I don’t really care, either.”

“He’s pretty damn good,” Roy continues, ignoring Jason’s trademark grumpiness. “I mean, not as good as me. But good, you know, for a Bat.”

“Maybe you two should have breakfast next time,” Jason grumbles as he sharpens his knife, cursing himself when he realizes he’s said that out loud.

“Aww, you guys had breakfast together?” Roy coos, then a look passes across his face that Jason knows he’s going to regret. “Wait. _Breakfast_? Damn, Jaybird. He really isn’t your brother, is he?” He actually waggles his eyebrows.

“You are fucking insane,” Jason says, pointing at him with the sharp end of his knife. “We worked a case, we got food after. The end.”

“Right,” Roy says and Jason wants to punch the stupid grin off his face. “Because you grab pancakes with everybody you work with.”

“It was chilaquiles,” Jason mutters under his breath and of course, of course Kory decides to walk in at that time.

“What is a chilaquiles?” She asks, pecking Roy on the cheek as she enters the room. “It sounds nice. I enjoy the way the word sounds in my mouth.”

“Apparently it’s what you eat on a hot breakfast date,” Roy says, because he is king of the assholes.

“Oh, Jason! You had a date? You must tell me all about it. Was it with Isabel again? She was very lovely, but I thought --”

“No, Kory --”

“It was with a _boy_ ,” Roy whispers to her conspiratorially and Jason thinks of thirty-seven ways he could hide the body so that no one would ever find him.

Kory’s eyes light up. “Oh Jason, I am so happy for you. You have been lonely for so long and --”

Jason gets up and crosses the room, takes Roy’s hat off his head and shoves his knife right through it. “You’re a dick,” he says and places it, big gaping hole in the middle, back on Roy’s head. “Kory, I was not on a date. And I am not lonely. Good night.”

 

***

 

 

Tim looks like he’s surprised to see him when he propels down from the ship and into the fray, but it only last a moment and then he’s back in combat mode, complete with biting sarcasm. It’s what Jason knows, what he’s comfortable with. It makes him swing harder, aim lower, heightens all of his other senses so that he knows exactly where Tim’s standing without even having to look.

“You’re late,” Tim snaps and Jason finds himself grinning as he pistol whips one of the crazies lunging at him.

“Carpool lane was a bitch,” Jason says, aiming over Tim’s shoulder to put a bullet in one of the escapees feet, watching him wail and double over in pain.

“Thanks for the assist, but I had that,” Tim barks out and to illustrate his point whips his staff around and sweeps them under the legs of two more coming at him.

“Nice,” Jason observes.

“Oh, could you two get a room already?” Steph rappels down with lines for both of them to grab onto, tossing a few knockout grenades onto the street. “C’mon. This will take care of them, we’re needed elsewhere.”

“There’s someplace worse?” Tim asks as he fastens the rappel line to his belt and ascends up the wall.

Jason does the same next to him, smirking grimly. “In Gotham? There’s always someplace worse.”

 

 

***

 

 

Turns out the Arkham escapees were just a diversion for the real shitstorm, hundreds of foaming at the mouth, zombiefied citizens trying to tear each other apart, unknowingly subjects in some new, deranged villain's fucked up science project.

Bruce, with Tim’s help analyzing the blood samples, finally figures out an antidote right before they transition to the full-on brain devouring part of the experiment and miraculously, Gotham survives yet another day.

“I don’t know how you do it,” Jason sighs after the last batch of antidotes are administered, taking off the hood to run his hands through sweat-damp hair.

“Do what?” Tim looks back at him, forehead wrinkled.

“This,” Jason says, sweeping his hand out. “All of this. All the fucking time. It never _ends._ I love Gotham, it’s my home, you know? But it’s never going to stop. That’s why I had to get away from it.”

Tim just shrugs. “Someone has to do it.”

And Jason misses that, sort of. The naive innocence, thinking he’s actually doing a damn bit of good. Yeah, sure, they saved the city from being overrun by crazed, flesh-eating zombies this time, but what about next time? And the time after that? Because there’s _always_ a time after that. He’s not like Tim, not anymore. But he’s kind of glad that Tim can still feel that way. After all, he’s right. Someone has to do it and it sure as hell can’t be him anymore, despite the fact that he’s finding himself in Gotham more and more these days.

He sees Tim check his watch then look up at him, grinning.

“What?” He asks, a suspicious edge in his tone.

“Nothing, just. Are you doing anything right now?”

Jason laughs. “Thought I’d go see if there’s another hoard of freakishly strong zombies who want to have my brains for dinner I can jump in the middle of, wanna come?”

Tim grins. “Actually I thought we could unwind by shooting the shit out of them for a few hours.”

Jason blinks. “Uh.”

“In a game,” Tim laughs. “Walking Undead?”

Jason chews on his bottom lip. “A game?”

“Yeah, you know. People play those sometimes. To have fun. You know what fun is, right? It’s pretty much the opposite of what we just did.”

“I dunno, I kind of liked the part where we got to stab people in the back of the neck with large needles.”

Tim sighs. “Just come on. You’ll love it. Lots of guns.”

Jason cracks a smile. “Why didn’t you say so in the first place?

 

 

***

 

 

“This is stupid,” Jason growls angrily, throwing the controller on the ground. His portion of the screen is red and blinking again, his character laid out on the ground, intestines being eaten by one of the zombies he failed to kill. “There’s no way I missed that fucker.”

Tim laughs. “You really suck at this.”

“Yeah,” Jason snaps. “Sorry I was fucking dead when this shit was invented and the al Ghul’s apparently weren’t a big fan of game rooms when I was a guest.”

Tim frowns and sets his controller down. “Jason, I’m --”

No, fuck that. Jason picks the controller back up and presses start. “What’s the fucking aim button?”

Tim grins. “Right trigger.”

Jason pauses, looks down at the complicated controller in his hands. Give him a gun, just about any gun in the fucking world, and he can take it apart in ten seconds, blindfolded. Put this ergonomic plastic piece of shit with lights and buttons and fucking built in vibrations in his hand and he feels like an idiot. “And that would be?”

Tim reaches over and takes Jason’s hand, guides it around the side of the controller and to the back, pushing his finger against the trigger.

“Right there,” he says softly and Jason watches as the little red crosshairs appear on the screen, looks over and watches Tim lick his lips. “I’m gonna get a drink. You want something?”

“Yeah,” Jason says, his throat feeling suddenly very dry. “Do you, shit, you probably don’t have beer, do you?”

Tim laughs. “Actually you’re in luck. Dick left some the last time he was over. You want?”

“Hell yeah,” Jason says and he raises his eyebrows when Tim comes back with two of them.

“Oh bite me,” Tim says and lifts the end of his shirt up to twist the cap off, flashing the pale, smooth skin of his stomach, the dark hairs below his navel that lead down to the waistband of his jeans, slung low on his hips. “What Bruce doesn’t know what hurt him.”

Jason lifts his beer and clinks it against his. “Now you’re getting it.”

 

 

***

 

 

“Holy crap you’re a lightweight,” Jason says when Tim throws in the towel, setting his controller down on the coffee table and leaning back against the couch, face flushed, hair sticking up all over from his hands being in it so much. He’s grinning, loose and kind of crooked, and his eyes are a little heavy, red rimmed. “You’ve had exactly two beers and you’re drunk.”

“Two,” Tim holds up two fingers then another, bending it at the knuckle. “And a half.”

Jason laughs. “I think you just made my point for me.”

“And m’not drunk,” Tim insists, apparently oblivious to the fact that he’s slurring. “I’m pres...pleasantly buzzed.”

“Dick would murder me if he could see you right now.”

“Shh,” Tim says, tipping forward with his finger to his lips. “Don’t tell him. He’ll make the face.”

“Mm,” Jason hums, taking another pull from his own beer, the last one Dick had left in the fridge. He’s got quite the buzz going on himself, everything kind of tingling and loose, his mouth getting the brunt of it. He doesn't know when to shut up on the best of days and alcohol seems to amplify that particular personality trait tenfold, not to mention it makes him sound like a jackass. “The face.”

“Yeah, you know the one,” Tim says, and he’s leaning into him, knee pressed up against Jason’s. “It’s all --” Tim tries to mimic Dick’s _I’m very disappointed in you, little brother_ face but he mostly ends up looking like grumpy cat -- yes, Jason does have the internet fuck you very much -- and when Tim starts giggling Jason realizes he’s said most, if not all of that, outloud.

“ _You’re_ grumpy cat,” Tim says, bumping Jason’s shoulder with his own. “Never have any fun.”

Jason finishes the last of his beer and drops the empty bottle on the carpet. “I’m having fun now,” he says and his voice comes out a little lower than he’d meant it to, the words lingering on his tongue long after he's said them.

“Me too,” Tim says, curling against his side and nuzzling Jason’s shoulder like a damn cat. Jason would look for a rolled up newspaper to bop him with, but it feels kind of nice. Plus, he thinks that’s puppies you do that to.

“Tim…”

“Smell nice,” Tim mumbles and Jason can feel his mouth move against his collarbone through his shirt. Then Tim’s shifting around and pulling his feet up under him, murmuring, “M’sleepy,” and curling up with his head in Jason’s lap and Jason’s just. Sitting there. Staring down at him. He slides his hands through his own hair because he doesn’t know what else to do with them.

He’s got a lap full of drunk, sleepy Tim Drake and earlier he was fighting zombies and then he spent all night playing a fucking video game like some frat house college kid and nothing in his life makes sense anymore.

 

***

 

Tim wakes up thinking he’s going to have to invent a new word because headache doesn't even _begin_ to cover it and when he finally works up the nerve to open his eyes there’s a bottle of water and pain reliever on the coffee table in front of him and a sticky note beneath them.

_Greasy food. Lots of carbs._

_Don’t tell Grayson._

 

 

***

 

 

Jason gets a text three days later.

_Lunch?_

It’s from Tim.

 _Sorry._ Jason texts back and it’s kind of a shocker to him to realize that he actually is. But Kory’s gone AWOL and Roy’s in the hospital with third degree Tamaranean burns covering practically his whole body, so he just adds, _Not in the country_ and shoves his phone into his back pocket.

When he gets around to checking it half an hour later after nearly having to throw down with fucking Queen in the middle of a goddamn hospital, Roy gives him a funny look and it takes Jason a minute to realize it’s because he’s making a stupid face at his phone.

_Okay. Be safe._

“Wanna share with the class, Jaybird?”

Jason clears his throat and mashes the power button his phone, shoving it in his pocket. “Nope. You ready to move yet?”

“Yeah,” Roy says, pulling the IV out of the back of his hand. “Let’s go find Kory.”

 

 

***

 

 

_Be safe._

No one fucking says that. No one says be safe or be careful or any of that kind of shit because they know it’s pointless. If they wanted to be safe, they wouldn’t be doing what they do. There’s nothing _careful_ about any of this.

Still, he finds himself pulling out his phone when they’ve got a couple of minutes of downtime and scrolling down to Tim’s message.

_Be safe._

Like he’s fucking _worried_ about him. Jason wants to laugh, but the thing, the stupid, unexplainable, annoying _feeling_ caught in his throat prevents it.

_Be safe._

He’s not sure why, but this time he makes a point to actually try.

 

 

***

 

 

It’s a little over a month before he makes it back to Gotham, two rival gangs making a mess of things, innocent citizens getting caught in the crossfire, and on his fucking turf, no less. Yeah, he doesn’t really live in Gotham anymore, but there’s still parts of it that he still call his, neighborhood that he checks in on every time he’s in town, places that these fuckers _know_ not to mess with or else he’ll rain down destruction on all their asses and make them sorry they even set foot there.

Him, Tim, and Damian handle it, Bruce away on some business with the League, and Jason only ends up with a bullet in his left shoulder for the trouble. Tim would say it’s because he didn’t wait for his back-up, just marched right into the fray guns blazing, ignoring Tim’s bitchy voice in his ear telling him to hold back, that he and Damian were almost to him. Jason would probably tell him to fuck off, he can handle himself. Which, he can. It was just one fucking bullet. It’s not like he’s dying.

“Stop moving,” Tim mutters under his breath as he stitches him up. Jason can stitch himself up just fine, but the asshole just had to clip him on the back where he can’t reach. He’d refused to go to the cave and let Alfred do it with that mixture of worry and disapproval on his face that always makes Jason feel like he should apologize or go clean his room or something, so they’re in Jason’s safehouse with minimal supplies. Minimal meaning no fucking anesthesia.

“I’m _not_ moving,” Jason grits his teeth. “I’m breathing.”

“Well,” Tim says, pulling the thread through. “Stop breathing so hard.”

Jason snorts. “You almost done back there?”

“Jason,” Tim says. He sounds angry or tired, an edge to his voice that’s not usually there. “Shut up and let me do this.”

Jason breathes out when the needle passes through his skin again and takes another long pull from the bottle of whiskey in his hands. It hurts a little, but it’s nothing he can’t handle. He mostly just hates having to be still this long, having Tim be so fucking careful with him like he’s made of glass, hands trembling and warm when they rest against Jason’s skin. It feels like it’s hours before he finally clips the thread and sits the scissors down, squeezing Jason’s good shoulder to let him know he’s all done.

“Thanks,” Jason mutters, leaning back against the couch. When he looks up Tim’s sitting on the other end, glaring at him.

“You’re such an asshole.”

Jason tilts his head back and laughs. Like, real, genuine laughter just bubbles out of him. Tim frowns. “That’s funny?”

Jason tips the bottle back, licks his lips. “It’s funny you’re just now noticing.”

 

 

***

 

 

They get trapped in some old warehouse down by the docks a week later, Tim shouting “Rebreathers!” right before the vines comes up from between the floorboards, curling around their arms and legs, tightening around their throats. Jason’s thankful Tim was smart enough to think of the rebreathers in case of something airborne, but there’s nothing to protect them from the thorns that bite into their skin, probably laced with some kind of toxin, knowing Ivy. They’re both regularly inoculated against most of her formulas but Jason thinks he can still feel it, that too-hot prickle all over his skin, the sweat on the back of his neck and he looks over at Tim to see if he’s feeling it too, but Tim’s just got that same determined, go-to-hell look he always has.

Ivy takes her time toying with them for a bit and Jason struggles against the vines when she turns her attention away from him and onto Tim, gritting his teeth as he watches her drag her long nails down the side of Tim’s face. She commands her vines to tighten around his throat and Jason struggles harder, feeling like his wrist is going to break when he hears the shallow gasp of air forced out of Tim’s mouth, his lips starting to go blue around the edges. Finally he forces his fingers to stretch out far enough and gets his knife free, making quick work of the vines around him. Ivy shrieks in pain each time he slices through one of them and Jason doesn’t even try to go after her when she flees, too occupied with cutting Tim free and checking his pulse, holding him up with both hands.

He doesn’t let go until the color comes back into his lips.

“We need to,” Tim finally says. “Shower. Chemicals. Bat cave.”

Jason nods. “I’ll drive,” He says and hands Tim the helmet when they walk out of the warehouse and back to his bike. Tim doesn’t put up a fight, just climbs on behind Jason and presses against him and Jason doesn’t know whether to chalk that up to his recent lack of oxygen or something else, something he doesn’t want to think about too much.

Tim strips first after they each get a new dose of anti-toxin, stepping head first under the showers in the cave and Jason turns his back, heat curling low in his belly. Fucking Ivy and her fucking sex drugs. He’s going to make it his life’s mission to hunt that crazy bitch down, tie her to a chair and teach her the fucking meaning of _consent_ before he throws her crazy ass back in Arkham.

“You all right?” Tim grabs him by the shoulder and Jason jerks, turns around and gets an eyeful, water dripping down Tim’s face, beading down his chest. Jason thanks god he’s still wearing the boxer-briefs he wears beneath the suit even if they do leave little to the imagination, especially wet and clinging to parts of Tim that Jason wishes he could stop staring at. “Jason, are you --”

“I gotta get out of here,” Jason says, wrenching out of Tim’s grasp, yanks his shirt out of one of the lockers and pulls it over his head.

“But --”

Tim’s voice gets lost in the squeal of tires as Jason peels out.

 

 

***

 

 

Jason hears him climb through the window a couple of hours later. He’s halfway through a six pack, distracting himself from the all the bullshit in his head by taking apart every weapon he owns and putting them back together, timing himself with the stopwatch on his phone, when Tim sits down next to him.

“So,” Tim says, poking his finger through the bullet hole in one of the cushions. “The bloodwork came back negative. There was no toxin.”

Jason sets the empty magazine down on the coffee table. He breathes through his nose. “You sure?”

Tim nods, then realizes Jason isn’t looking at him and says, “Uh huh. Yeah.”

He doesn’t even have time to blink before Jason’s hand is pressed against the side of his face and his mouth is covering his, hard and insistent, licking into Tim’s mouth impatiently. Tim makes a soft noise in the back of his throat and Jason swallows it, letting his hand slide to the back of Tim’s neck, fingertips grazing the soft hairs there.

“This okay, then?” He pulls back to ask, his breath coming out in shaky puffs of air. He can’t stop staring at Tim’s _mouth._

“Yes, god,” Tim’s saying, then leaning back against the arm of the couch and grabbing Jason’s collar, pulling him down on top of him. “I've wanted --”

But then Jason’s kissing him again, sweeping his tongue in his mouth, sucking on his plush bottom lip, their bodies pressed together, chest to chest, hip to hip, and Jason can _feel_ just how much Tim wants pressed against his thigh, but - -

"You're sure you're not just fucked up on sex toxin or whatever?"

Tim huffs angrily. "You are not this dumb."

"Maybe not, but spell it out for me anyway?"

Tim slides his hands down Jason's sides. "Just kiss me again, idiot," he says and Jason shivers when he feels Tim's fingers slip beneath the hem of his shirt.

"Okay, yeah," Jason murmurs and lets Tim drag him down. Where it was slow and tentative at first, now it's frantic and needy, Tim's hands on his back, fingers kneading the muscles there, making encouraging noises against Jason's mouth. His other hand slips into Jason's hair and Jason scrapes his teeth down his jaw, mouths at his neck and pulls the skin below his ear between his teeth until Tim gasps and he can feel the blunt tips of his nails through his t-shirt.

_"Jason."_

"Yeah?" Jason's voice comes out sounding raw, breathing heavy against Tim's skin. Tim rolls his hips in reply and Jason's mouth goes slack when Tim's dick grinds against his, the friction so sweet he barely even notices the barrier of their jeans.

"Say it," he growls around the shell of Tim's ear, needing to hear it more than anything in his life, the strange tightness in his chest slipping away once Tim finally gets it.

"I want you," he gasps out, pulling Jason's shirt off and over his head with one swift tug, catching his mouth in a hungry, bruising kiss before continuing. "I want you, I want you, I - -"

"Fuck," Jason groans and scoots down on the couch, shoving Tim's shirt up to his armpits, flicking his tongue over one of Tim's nipples before dragging his mouth down his stomach.

"Oh god, oh--" Tim reaches down and curls his fingers around Jason's shoulder when he yanks on his jeans, making them slip off his hips a little and mouths at the sharp angle of one of his hipbones, sucking a bruise right next to it. " _Jay._ "

"Yeah," Jason's murmurs, distracted by the way Tim's stomach is rapidly rising and falling, the way he's gone pink almost everywhere. He flicks the button on Tim's jeans open and if he had any doubts Tim still wants this they're completely destroyed when Tim lifts his hips immediately and starts shoving his jeans down. Jason would laugh, say something smart about how eager he is -- he would, but he’s too busy being really fucking turned on at _how eager he is._

“Yeah,” Jason mutters again, mostly to himself, as he hooks his thumbs and fingers into the waistband of Tim’s boxers and pulls both them and his jeans off at the same time. He doesn’t look at Tim when he mutters, “Haven’t done this before,” right before taking him in his mouth.

“ _Fuck,_ ” Tim swears loudly when Jason’s mouth envelopes him and gets his fingers tangled up in Jason’s hair, not insistent or pushy, just like he needs something to hold on to. Jason kind of likes it anyway, the way Tim’s fingers dig into his scalp when he pushes his tongue against the slit, the way he tugs on his hair and moans a little when Jason’s teeth accidentally graze him when he tries to take him deeper.

Jason moves one hand from Tim’s hip to flatten out over his stomach. He likes the way Tim’s just _shaking_ beneath him like he’s trying to hold it together. He likes the way he keeps saying his name over and over _JayJayJason_ like that’s the only word left in his vocabulary, the only name that means anything anymore, and he can feel it, the way the muscles in his stomach quiver then tighten up, knows he’s about to come, so he pulls off and gets him the rest of the way with his hand. His eyes find Tim’s right before his hips start to jerk and he gets to see his face, beautifully vulnerable and exposed, his mouth frozen on the shape of Jason’s name when he comes.

“God,” Tim says, panting. “ _God._ You -- come _here_ ,” and he’s reaching for Jason, tearing his fly open with shaky hands and shoving his pants down off his ass. Then his perfect, perfect hand is curling around Jason’s dick and Jason let’s out a deep moan that sounds like it came from his fucking _toes_ and thrusts into the circle of Tim’s fist, leaning over to kiss him, sloppy and messy and crooked as he comes embarrassingly quick, streaking Tim’s chest and belly with it, elbows giving out and collasping on top of Tim.

“Jesus christ,” he says finally. He can’t remember the last time he felt so out of breath, so fucking _wrecked._

“Yeah,” Tim says and a laugh reverberates from his chest. “Wow.”

“Wow,” Jason mouths against his skin and promptly falls asleep on Tim’s shoulder.

 

 

***

 

 

Tim wanders in the kitchen around ten, scratching the back of his head, boxers hanging off one hip, displaying the deep purple bruise Jason left there last night. There’s a stack of pancakes a foot high, a platter of scrambled eggs, and bacon sizzling in the skillet. Jason turns around and pours him a cup of coffee.

“You made breakfast?” Tim asks through a yawn, his voice sleep-scratchy. There’s another bruise next to his collarbone and Jason’s finding it hard to look at anything else.

He shrugs and upends the Half and Half into the cup. “Figured it was my turn.”

Tim kisses him until his coffee goes cold and the bacon burns.

Neither of them care.


End file.
